


choose us

by complicationstoo



Series: STB Bingo Round One [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, established winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: “Are you honestly telling me that it doesn’t bother you?” Tony gestures across the dining hall, where Steve is currently chatting with Maria Hill like they’re the best of friends. He’s laughing at something she said, head tossed back and his eyes doing that crinkling thing around the corners.Bucky looks over and stares at the pair with a forlorn expression, sighing as Steve laughs even louder at whatever she says next. “Alright, yeah, I hate her, too.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: STB Bingo Round One [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037892
Comments: 17
Kudos: 398
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One





	choose us

**Author's Note:**

> For my Steve | Tony | Bucky Bingo Square:   
> B2 - Maria Hill

“I hate her,” Tony says petulantly, dropping his tray onto the table next to his boyfriend’s and slumping down into his seat. 

Bucky snorts and snatches one of his fries, “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” Tony argues, slapping away Bucky’s wrist when he goes for another one. “She’s the worst person I ever met, and I hate her.”

“Jealousy is such a lovely color on you, baby.”

“Are you honestly telling me that it doesn’t bother you?” Tony gestures across the dining hall, where Steve is currently chatting with Maria Hill like they’re the best of friends. He’s laughing at something she said, head tossed back and his eyes doing that crinkling thing around the corners. 

Bucky looks over and stares at the pair with a forlorn expression, sighing as Steve laughs even louder at whatever she says next. “Alright, yeah, I hate her, too.”

“There’s just no way she’s that fucking funny,” Tony grumbles, angrily shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. “I’m that fucking funny, and he never laughs at my jokes like that.”

Bucky hooks an arm around his waist, pulling him in close and resting his chin on Tony’s shoulder. Tony leans into him automatically, and Bucky presses his face into the crook of Tony’s neck. “I laugh at your jokes.”

“You have to laugh or you don’t get sex. It’s not the same thing.”

Laughing, Bucky says, “Like you would possibly withhold sex over that. You’re needy as hell, sweetheart.”

Tony grins, “You like it.”

“I love it,” Bucky corrects. “Now stop glaring daggers into Maria and eat your lunch so we have time to get coffee before class.”

Tony huffs, picking up his sandwich and taking a bite. He doesn’t stop glaring, though, because he can eat and plot someone’s demise at the same time. 

“I just don’t get how you’re so calm about it,” Tony says eventually, and he can feel Bucky’s sigh against his neck. “We’ve been in love with him for months, and you’re not even bothered that he’s flirting with her twenty feet away from us.”

“Honestly? I’ve given up.”

Tony pulls back abruptly, turning wide, sad eyes onto Bucky. “What? No. You can’t do that.”

Bucky puts his elbow on the table, chin in his palm. He reaches out to wipe away the mustard smear from Tony’s chin with his thumb. “I’ve become resigned to the fact that Steve Rogers will forever be unattainable. Like - like - what’s that thing in those books you like? The thing with the brooms and whatever they’re trying to catch?”

Tony squints at him in confusion. “Are you comparing him to the golden snitch right now? Cause that’s not actually unattainable, you know. I mean, it’s hard, but it’s not impossible. That’s kind of the whole point of having an entire position dedicated to catching it.”

“Baby, I didn’t read those books.”

“You watched the movies with me.”

“No, I sucked your dick during one of the movies,” Bucky smirks, reaching for his styrofoam cup and sipping from his straw. 

Tony sighs wistfully, “And I will forever associate the best orgasm of my life with Daniel Radcliffe’s face.”

Bucky gives him an offended look. “Hey, I gave you that orgasm. Don’t associate it with another man.”

“Well, I certainly picked the wrong time to come over here,” Steve says, and both of them jump at his sudden presence. Bucky almost drops his drink and just barely recovers before it spills into Tony’s lap, while Tony loses a few fries to the ground. Steve’s look is amused as he says, “It’s nice to see you, too.”

Tony aims for casual, but his smile is tight as he says, “Hey, Steve. What’s up?”

Steve slips into the chair opposite Bucky at their rectangular table, putting his backpack in the empty chair next to him. He’s wearing a tight navy blue henley shirt that clings to every dip of his muscular chest, and Tony hears the soft, longing sound Bucky makes and has to stop his smile. 

“Nothing much. Missed you in class this morning, though. Where were you?”

“Oh, uh, something… came up,” Tony says vaguely, and Bucky stifles a laugh next to him. “Very urgent. Required immediate attention.”

Steve sighs, reaching into his backpack, presumably for the notes he took to give to Tony. “Stop skipping class for sex, please.”

“You have no proof that’s what it was for,” Tony says, though Bucky’s burst of laughter was probably proof enough. He takes the notebook Steve offers and snaps pictures of the pages, even though they both know he isn’t actually going to look at them later. “So, uh, you and Maria seemed to be getting along awfully well.”

Steve shrugs, “She sits next to me in my graphic design class.”

“Huh, how lovely.”

Bucky puts his hand over Tony’s knee under the table, circling his thumb over it soothingly. It makes it funnier when he’s the one that continues the line of questioning that he just stopped Tony from pursuing. “Looked like some pretty heavy flirting from over here.” 

Steve frowns, looking over his shoulder to where Maria is now sitting with Natasha, their heads ducked close together as they talk. “No, I - I wasn’t flirting. Did it - was she? Did it look like she was?”

Tony’s heart sinks at that, because now Steve is clearly taking notice and considering her as an option, when he wasn’t before. His tone is clipped as he says, “Nope, not at all. Don’t think she’s interested, sorry. Sure you’ll get ‘em next time.”

“Yeah, guess that’s a lost cause,” Bucky adds on, and Steve turns back around with a confused face. 

“You just said it looked like flirting.”

“Well, Bucky has no clue what flirting looks like,” Tony says. “I mean, come on, I flirted with him for six months before he finally took the hint.”

“Hey, in my defense, your flirting sucks.”

“What?” Tony scoffs, pulling away from Bucky to give him a dirty look. He turns to Steve and asks, “Steve, if I told you that your ass should belong to the government because it’s a national treasure, is that clear?”

Steve blushes red instantly, stammering, “Uh, yeah, I - that would be pretty clear, yeah.”

Bucky and Tony exchange a subtle, side-eyed look at Steve’s reaction, and they don’t need to talk to formulate the plan. Bucky leans in on his elbows, looking at Steve intently. “But Tony doesn’t have room to talk, because I once told him that he would look good in nothing but a gag, and he thought I was telling him to shut up.”

Steve’s pupils dilate slightly, and it’s impossible to miss the way he swallows hard. “Right, yeah, I can, uh, I can see why he would think that.”

“But what if I flat out told you that I would love to be on my knees for you?” Tony questions, and he can hear Steve’s breath catch his throat. “I mean, there’s some context missing, of course, but if I said that I would drop to my knees in front of you anywhere, that would obviously be a hint that I’m into you, right?”

Steve’s lips part, and he sucks in air sharply. Bucky doesn’t give him a chance to recover, before he adds onto it. “And if I told you that we’d be having a lot more fun right now in my bed? You’d get what I was saying, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know, could mean a whole lot of things,” Tony says, and he lets his fingertips drift lightly up the side of Bucky’s neck through his long hair. Steve’s eyes are locked onto the movement. “How is he supposed to know that we’re really not talking in hypotheticals at all?”

“Think we should just tell him?”

“That we want him in our bed?” Tony asks, and he waits for Bucky’s hand to squeeze on his knee for permission to say the next part. “Or that we want him in our relationship permanently? I think the first part seems pretty clear by now.”

“Second probably is a bit more ambiguous,” Bucky agrees, and Steve’s eyes widen. “Wouldn’t have been if he’d seen the way you were seething when you thought he was flirting with someone else just now.”

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t spill your drink on Thor on purpose the other week when he gave Steve a compliment.”

Bucky grins, “It was an unfortunate accident that just so happened to occur right after Thor said that Steve’s sweater made his eyes look more blue.”

“And when you punched Rumlow in the face after he grabbed Steve’s ass?”

“That was just the gentlemanly thing to do.”

Steve’s face is cycling through emotions, and it would be kind of funny if it also weren’t so worrying. A little more confirmation would be nice, because while he was obviously responding with attraction to the more sexualized comments, he hasn’t said a word on the idea of a relationship with them. That one’s a lot harder to take back then flirting, which could have been brushed away rather easily if not reciprocated. 

“I’m wondering if it would make things better or worse if we just told him that we’re both in love with him,” Tony says, and his heart is in his throat despite the casual tone. 

“I don’t think it could possibly make him panic more,” Bucky replies, and Tony can hear the undertone of his own nervousness in it. “This was maybe not our brightest idea.”

Tony sighs, looking at Steve, “We can still be friends, right? If we read this all wrong and just made complete idiots of ourselves? I mean, we’ve been ignoring our feelings for months already, we’re clearly good at pushing them down and acting normal.”

“Months?” Steve repeats, voice pitched high. “You’ve been - months?”

“Months,” Bucky confirms. 

“We were trying not to make it weird, so we didn’t say anything.”

“Months,” Steve echoes again, whispering it to himself as he stares down unseeingly at the table. He has the look of someone who’s reevaluating every interaction of those said months, and Tony doesn’t know if it bodes well for them or not. “So that night at Sam’s birthday party, when Tony got drunk and started talking about my hair. That was - that wasn’t just you being weird?”

“I mean, it was definitely weird, I’m sure,” Tony says, a slight blush spreading across his cheeks while Bucky laughs. 

“That’s the tip of the iceberg of shit Tony’s said about you while he’s drunk. I can tell you more if you want, but I’m sure he’ll start saying it sober and to you, too, if you’re interested.”

“Only if you’re interested,” Tony repeats quickly. “We can also pretend this never happened, because you still haven’t said anything about if you actually want this or not.”

Steve whips his head back up, and his mouth opens and closes a few times. “What - what kind of stuff have you said?”

Tony and Bucky exchange another look, and Bucky says, “Well, some of it’s downright filthy, so we maybe shouldn’t say it in the middle of the dining hall, but the rest of it… There’s a lot of surprisingly sappy shit about how nice your eyes are and how your voice sounds in the morning.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Tony says, giving Steve a small smile when he sees the way that his face has taken on a sort of hopeful look to it. “He’s even sappier. Ask him his thoughts on cuddling one of these days.”

Steve sits quietly for a moment, his gaze shifting between the two of them. Hesitantly, he asks, “So this is real? This is - you’re not messing with me? You both actually want me?”

“We do,” Bucky says. 

“But it’s not -” Tony breaks off, considering how to phrase it. “We’re kind of a package deal. If you only like one of us, I don’t even want to know which one it is. If you like us at all, that is.”

“No,” Steve says quickly, and Tony flinches in surprise. He softens his tone at the reaction. “No, I mean, I don’t like just one of you. I - this is so fucking weird.”

Bucky recoils, “Yeah, okay, thanks. Message received, I guess.”

“Not like that,” Steve amends, holding his hands out in front of him. “It’s just that I spent a really long time feeling like a shitty friend for having feelings for both of you. Like you’re already not supposed to be in love with your best friend, and you’re definitely not supposed to fall for his boyfriend, either. Doing both is like - like - I don’t know what it’s like, but you shouldn’t do it.”

Tony grins, “Wow, you’re both so eloquent with analogies. No wonder I’m so into you guys. This one called Quidditch the thing with the brooms, and you can’t even get that far.”

“The thing with the brooms?” Steve questions, looking offended in Bucky’s direction. “That’s not even a good description of what it is.”

“Oh my God,” Bucky mutters. “You’re both fucking nerds. Can’t believe I’m subjecting myself to both of you.”

Tony sticks his tongue out at him. Then he suddenly remembers, “Oh, wait, what’s today’s date?”

Bucky understands why immediately, but Steve looks confused as he says, “It’s April ninth. Why does that matter?”

“Because Bucky and I don’t know our anniversary, except that it’s sometime in October, but I wanna know this one,” Tony says like it’s obvious. 

“We - anniversary?” 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “You did just say you’re in love with both of us, right? And you heard us when we said we’re in love with you?”

Steve nods slowly, and Tony wishes it wasn’t so endearing that he can’t seem to wrap his head around what’s happening. Eventually he says, “Oh.”

Tony checks his watch, and they’re a couple of minutes from being late for class. They could still make it if they run, but class doesn’t have nearly the appeal that taking Steve back to their apartment and showing him just how much they want him does. 

Standing up, Tony reaches for Steve’s hand and pulls him up. “Come along, we have things to do. You clearly need an active demonstration on how it works when three people are all in love with each other and want to be together.”

Steve’s eyes go wide again, and his nod is eager. “Yeah, yeah I think I do.”

Bucky laughs, shaking his head fondly at them. “Guess that leaves me taking care of your tray. Thanks, babe.”

“Well, when you’re done you can hold his other hand,” Tony says with a grin. “He does have two, and they’re very nice.”

Bucky gets up, gathering his wrappers and Tony’s. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard all of your thoughts on Steve’s hands before.”

“Can I hear them?” Steve asks. 

Tony leans into whisper in his ear, “It’s honestly best if we save those for the bedroom, darling. It’s just that I’ve happened to notice that your fingers are longer than Bucky’s are, and, well, I think you can fill in the rest yourself.”

Steve stops breathing, and when he recovers, he springs right into action and starts moving them towards the nearest door. Tony laughs while Bucky calls out, “Oh, okay, I guess I’ve got Steve’s backpack, too. What’s wrong with you people?”

“You chose us!” Tony replies, looking back over his shoulder at his grinning boyfriend, then back at his  _ other  _ boyfriend, whose smile is looking like a permanent fixture. There’s more for them to talk about, he knows, because it’s brand new and none of them really know how to handle it in the long run. But for now, he squeezes Steve’s hand a little tighter while they wait for Bucky to catch up to them and says, “Damn, I owe Maria Hill a fucking fruit basket.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@ifmywishescametrue](https://ifmywishescametrue.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
